Army Discharge Records: Fill & Download for Free

Question: What is it like to leave the Army with a dishonorable discharge?I work with homeless veterans and I have worked with four who told me that they had dishonorable discharges and likely several more who did and who didn’t tell. I knew (and know) better than to ask as it is embarrassing for most people and if they want you to know, they’ll tell you.Anyway…. all of the people who I knew who had dishonorable discharges were already marginal people (drug abuse, other criminal convictions, domestic abuse issues, etc.) so their poor discharge record and the federal felony conviction that accompanied it were simply the way that their life was going to “go.” While two weren’t “bad people” despite their past and present issues, the remainder were (in my opinion) varying degrees of “assholish” and didn’t elect much sympathy or empathy from me.The program that I worked in Nevada would help both vets with honorable, as well as other types of discharges. While it couldn’t do much for bad conduct and dishonorable dischargees, they could often find them work and housing from people and businesses willing to overlook their past problems. While this seemed to work for a few of the vets, some were simply so fucked up that no amount of external effort was likely ever going to turn their lives around. They lived rough lives around Reno/Sparks for years until they left the area, they went to prison or they died.It’s actually pretty rare to run into veterans with these types of discharges as the US military often goes out of its way to avoid issuing them. Unless the offender and offense are too serious to ignore or the offender insists upon receiving a court martial, they are often satisfied with granting them a general or an OTH (Other Than Honorable) discharge simply to remove that individual from the service and bring the matter to a close. So the eight or nine people who I met were a rarity due perhaps to fact that Nevada has a tendency to attract large numbers of homeless people from across the country.Basically, if you are unlucky enough to get courtmartialed if you don’t come from a family of wealth and you remain in the United States, your options will be limited. You have a federal felony conviction, you cannot receive many types of employment and you cannot access any veterans benefits which might have been due to you. While you don’t necessarily have to tell other people, if you were in the military for a significant length of time (or if they do a background check on you) then you’ll have a large gap of time that you’ll have to explain.

https://www.va.gov/records/get-military-service-records/Five second search. Very simple. Of course, you can only get your own records.

Question: Just how damaging is it to be dishonorably discharged from any branch of the U.S. military?Frankly, it depends upon the person who receives it and how they are able to manage their lives following their receiving the discharge. Normally it’s not the discharge itself which is the problem; it’s the mental and emotional issues that caused what would have normally been a Less Than Honorable or even a General Discharge in the majority of cases to have been referred to a courtmartial.First things first: Dishonorable discharges from the military are relatively rare. In 2014 according to the citation below, just 157 people IN TOTAL received a dishonorable, out of the 207k who were discharged. So that’s .07 which makes it just as likely that you would die from a training accident or be killed in a motor vehicle crash. It’s not a large number of people at any time, and so it’s rare that most people would never encounter someone who has been granted on in most situations.Next, despite what many people seem to believe, most jobs don’t require extensive background checks, and many that do really don’t pay well enough to make them worthwhile. The majority of construction, repair, food service,personal services, and many retail roles don’t require background checks; and many of the ones which do will still hire felons, especially during periods of worker shortages. While they aren’t high profile, white collar roles, most people without poor military discharge records don’t have those types of roles anyway.Additionally assuming that the individual isn't a complete deviant or antisocial personality, they often have family members and friends who will assist and support them. An example of this would be former US Army Lieutenant William Calley who was convicted of his actions during the My Lai massacre in South Vietnam in 1971. Although Calley sentence was commuted, he remains a convicted felon; however his wife’s family owns a jewelry business in Georgia and Calley was able to make a career for himself in that company until his recent retirement.Finally, not many people are as familiar with the military in this era as they were in times past. I have been asked about my military discharge a grand total of TWICE in the 31 years since I left (I have an honorable discharge in case you were wondering) and neither time did anyone ask to actually look at my DD-214 which is the documentation proving it. Additionally, while I have undergone background checks for jobs related to the petroleum industry and areas in Maritime Security (MARSEC) facilities, none of them requested my military discharge status; nor was it on the background check paperwork that I received after they were performed. It’s not something that’s reviewed by most people and because of its rarity, it’s virtually unlikely to come up in most scenarios.Because I have worked with homeless vets in the past, I have encountered some who had Dishonorables. Their discharge status was ironically the LEAST important impediment to their having success in life as they often had substance, mental health, and emotional control issues that prevented them from living relatively “normal” lives. Even if those individuals had received honorable or even general discharges, it’s doubtful that they would have been able to reach the upper levels of any career field, due to the various problems that were (and are) plaguing them.While it’s not “desirable” and it would definitely make things more difficult in certain areas, the reality is that a dishonorable discharge, besides being rare, is virtually meaningless to the lives of most people. The recipients can still obtain jobs (some of them high-paying, especially in the construction trades) and it’s unlikely that they are going to be questioned about their discharge status during the overwhelming majority of encounters following their removal from the military.Reference:No 'honorable' discharge means tough road for some vetsWilliam Calley Jr. and the My Lai Massacre